Apple Snow - Dessert Using Egg Whites

Evening Everyone,

In her post on Wednesday, Ros, Wild Cards on my Workbench, asked if anybody had any suggestions for interesting things to do with egg whites. Apparently, she had some egg whites over after making passion fruit ice cream - sounds yummy :)  Yesterday I remembered that a dish called Apple Snow was a great favourite with all of us when it appeared on the school dinner menu, and one of the ingredients was whipped egg white.

Basically, it was apple sauce with whipped egg white mixed through - a very simple dish, but light and fluffy and delicious. I don't have a recipe so I've made it from memory, guessing at the ingredients and quantities ... I have to say the Quality Control Department, aka DH, gave it the thumbs up at dinner this evening:)

At school it was always served with a topping of crushed cornflakes - I've substituted dessicated coconut ... in keeping with the snow theme. Sadly, it doesn't photograph well, but I did try to get its best side - here's it served in a sundae dish.

Apple Snow

Ingredients:

 

For apple sauce:

• 3 Large Bramley Cooking Apples, peeled, cored and chopped - Bramley cooking apples are best for this dish because they cook to puree very quickly and easily but any sharp cooker could be substituted -  sorry forgot to weigh them.
• ¼ pint water
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• Sugar to taste - I omitted this and the end result was still very good but for those with a very sweet tooth don't hold back

For the whipped egg:

• 2 egg whites
• 1 rounded tablespoon caster sugar - your can use a sugar substitute as I did and it works just fine.

Topping:

• 1 tablespoon desiccated coconut

Method:

• Cook apples, water and lemon juice until apples are cooked down to a soft and pureed consistency, then pour into to a bowl and leave to cool.
• In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until stiff, then gradually whisk in the caster sugar.
• Fold the whisked egg into the apple puree and pour the mix into a serving dish
• Sprinkle desiccated coconut over the top.

For a quicker method, and a smaller quantity, you could use a jar of apple sauce as the basis, but one egg white should be enough.

My apple snow is very white, as snow should be, but the school version, as I remember it, was a lovely pale green -  perhaps food colouring was added. There wasn't the food additives awareness then as there is today.

It's now after midnight so I'm off to bed. I have a card to post but it will have to be done tomorrow as I'm bushed - at my age I need all the beauty sleep I can get too :)

Happy Crafting,

Pauper's Pie - Another of Mother's Recipes

Good Afternoon,

If you follow the lovely Di's blog,  Pixie's Crafty Workshop ,you will know that she isn't just crafter with a great sense of humour, she's not a bad cook too, and posts a weekly Friday Feast recipe for us to enjoy. One of her recent pasta recipes featured those store-cupboard essentials - tinned tuna fish and mushroom soup - you can see her recipe here - and that triggered a memory of a rather tasty pie my mother used to make. I promised Di I would post the recipe, so here it is.

It's inexpensive to make, hence the name Pauper's Pie! The original ingredients included bacon, however when that wasn't available Mum would substitute with tinned tuna fish and the soup she used was the condensed sort, as made by Campbell's. Over the years the recipe has been further adapted by substituting the soup with cheese sauce - my children preferred the taste of the cheese sauce. Of course, I had to get out my notebook and cook up the dish up for you all to see. Here's the instructions for this version:
    

Pauper’s Pie

 

Ingredients: 

• 1 Large onion – peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 Medium sized carrots – peeled and sliced 
• 4/5 Large potatoes – peeled and sliced
• Either: 8oz of bacon rashers - fat removed and chopped into bite size bits
• or: 1 large tin of tuna chunks in brine, drained and flaked
• Either:  1 tin of condensed soup, mushroom, chicken or celery flavour, mixed to a smooth consistency with half a tin of water or: 
• 1 pint cheese sauce already prepared
• 2oz Grated cheese
• Salt & pepper to taste 

 An oiled ovenproof dish - a lasagna dish is nice for this recipe

Directions:

• Set oven to moderately hot temperature (190°C in electric oven)
• Lightly oil ovenproof dish
• Layer potato slices, onion, bacon/tuna in dish – finish with a layer of potato slices. Add salt & pepper to taste over layers.
• Pour prepared condensed soup/cheese sauce over the layers
• Place in oven and cook for about 30 minutes
• Remove dish from oven and sprinkle grated cheese and return to oven for a further 15 minutes until melted and browned
• Remove dish from oven and check with skewer to ensure potato and carrot is thoroughly cooked through

Serve with a tomato salad and fresh crusty bread.

 

This is one of my DH's favourite suppers but he never makes it himself. He's not a half bad cook but prefers to prepare simple meals and won't cook what he calls composite dishes - he was a research chemist!! He refers to it as that 'fiddly cooking you like to do' :) I think he doesn't like all that slicing and layering of the veg, and he'd never make a cheese sauce unless it came out of a packet! When he chops onions he gets out his Nicer Dicer, when I chop onions I get out the sharpest knife :)

 

Hope those of you who try it enjoy this pie and find it as tasty as we do.  I'd be interested to know what version you make - bacon or tuna, soup or sauce?

 

September is another bumper month for birthdays, starting with my son's partner, Elaine's birthday soon, so a card for her will be my project for this evening.

 

Happy crafting (and cooking) to you all,